The Descendants

Alexander Payne adapted this from Kaui Hart Hemmings’ 2007 novel. The screenplay he wrote with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash won the Academy Award for Adapted Screenplay, and the film was also nominated for Best Picture, Directing, Film Editing and Actor in a Leading Role for George Clooney. At the Golden Globes it won best drama film and best drama actor for Clooney, with Shailene Woodley nominated in supporting actress. Its three BAFTA nominations all went unrewarded. Payne commissioned no orchestral score. The soundtrack is Hawaiian music from end to end, mostly existing recordings by figures such as Gabby Pahinui, Ray Kane and Sonny Chillingworth; only Keola Beamer and Jeff Peterson cut new material for it. Grief scenes therefore play over slack key guitar rather than strings. The second weight in the story is property. Matt is sole trustee of a family holding of 25,000 acres on Kauai, and that trust is running out of time. His wife never wakes and never says a word, so every reckoning is delivered at the bedside of someone who cannot answer back. A good fit if you can watch the news of an affair turn into one sided speeches rather than an argument. Not for anyone who wants Hawaii as a postcard, or who will resent a land transfer occupying half the plot.